


Inheritance

by bearonthecouch



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Conversations, Family, Gen, Minorly Canon Divergent I Suppose, Promised Day (run-up to), Reunions, Sibling Bonding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-23
Updated: 2018-11-23
Packaged: 2019-08-28 06:42:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16718299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bearonthecouch/pseuds/bearonthecouch
Summary: This isn't about the whole country, not right now. It's about them, and their family, and the ingrained truths that they have both been taught.





	Inheritance

As always, the house feels too big and too empty. For generations, the Armstrong children have tended toward throwing themselves into the wider world from the first second they are allowed to. Olivier never comes back to visit; Alex never wants to. Yet here they are.  
  
Alex leans against the wall just inside the dining room door, and looks around the room which hasn't changed since he was a child, and was probably the same when his father was a child, honestly. It's all enormous dark wood furniture and crystal chandeliers hanging from the ceiling. Everything looks pristine, and there is no illusion of comfort or warmth.  
  
Olivier turns away from the floor-to-ceiling windows across the room. A beam of sunlight streams in where she's pushed away the heavy fabric drapes. It paints a triangle of light over the thick carpet and a strip of the dining room table.  
  
She steps out of the direct light and puts her hands down on the table, a commander looking over an invisible map, contructing battle plans. She glances up at Alex, and he's pulled forward, one step, and then two, submitting to the force of her personality because he trusts her, even though they weren't – and may still not be – speaking.  
  
“You know I'd've just given the inheritance to you,” he points out.  
  
Olivier shakes her head, giving him that 'I can't believe you' look that he remembers all too well. “You'll still do anything to avoid a conflict, won't you, Alex?”  
  
“This fight was pointless. It's supposed to prove what? That you're better than me? We already knew that.”  
  
“You're still too scared to defend yourself.”  
  
“I-”  
  
But she just holds up a hand to stop him, and plows forward. “I'm not talking about physically. You've been able to hold your own since you were little, even when you lose. But personally? Politically? After Ishval, you wouldn't let yourself admit, even to me, that you made the right call.”  
  
Alex takes a deep breath and closes his eyes, just for a second, before he opens them again and meets his sister's piercing gaze. “You think I made the right call?” he asks softly.  
  
Olivier shrugs. She's been personally harboring an Ishvalan within the military for years. But what she thinks doesn't matter. “Do you?” she presses. Alex is nodding before he opens his mouth to answer, and Olivier smiles. “You'd do it again?”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“That's not cowardice. You took a stand against an unlawful order.”  
  
“And you're... okay with that?” Alex asks carefully. Because he'd rebelled not just against the Amestrian military, but against their father personally, accusing him of condoning genocide in the only screaming match they'd ever had that wasn't one-sided. He was so horrified by what he'd seen and been forced to do that there wasn't any room left for childhood fears. So what if his father hated him? That wasn't new.  
  
But Olivier was watching, silently making judgments, staying out of the fray. And then she retreated to her mountain fortress and stopped talking to him. Not that they'd really been talking before, but this time it felt final. He was so sure that she agreed with their father. But... maybe he was wrong.  
  
“Sit down,” Olivier orders. He sits. She does too, moving the nearest chair over to where she's standing and settling into it. “You should take the house,” she says simply.  
  
But Alex is already shaking his head. “You're going to stay in Central, Liv, you know you are.” She's hit the upper limit of what she can do at Fort Briggs. She can't hide up north forever.  
  
She looks uncertain, though. “How long have we been lied to, Alex?”  
  
He just stares at her. All his life, he has never heard her falter. The only time he's seen this look in her eyes is when he used to run to her as a child. He had no one else to ask for help. And she never fought his battles for him, but at least until she'd left, he wasn't fighting them alone. Father mellowed after little Catherine was born, but the rift he'd created between himself and his other, older children was too deep to be repairable. But the ties between them were never completely cut either. Here they are, on this plush-carpeted battlefield, because neither one of them would allow their parents to die if they could save them.  
  
Alex settles back in his chair and crosses his arms over his chest, watching his sister as she frowns at him, worried. Not afraid, never that. But the foundation upon which she's built her life has just collapsed beneath her. Like it did for him in Ishval. He still stands by his choice. “You're talking about the Fuhrer?” he says softly. “The homunculi and the transmutation circle?”  
  
Olivier shakes her head. “I mean, that's part of it,” she says. Obviously. “But...”  
  
No, this isn't about the whole country, not right now. It's about _them_ , and their family, and the ingrained truths that they have both been taught. Honor. Duty. Strength. The Armstrong family has been fighting for generations, maybe since Amestris' very first war. Alex can't tear himself away from that completely. He doesn't _want_ to. And Olivier knows that the military she serves isn't righteous or good. She knew it before she was ever old enough to enlist. But without it, what else is there?  
  
Where the hell does this leave them?  
  
“You should take the house, General,” Alex says, without answering the complicated question.  
  
“Why? So I can turn into him?”  
  
He sighs deeply and shakes his head in protest. “You know I didn't mean that.”  
  
“I don't know anything, Alex, you haven't talked to me since I left for the Academy.”  
  
_That's not my fault!_ Alex wants to argue. _You're the one who left._  
  
But he doesn't blame her, really. He left too, as soon as he could. Until he felt that tug toward the oaths of their family. He became a dog of the military because he knew it was the only real way to be an alchemist. _Maybe_ , he'd reasoned, _it's a way that we can both get what we want_. It still wasn't enough to win his father's approval, by then he was well aware that nothing ever would be. But he knew that Olivier knew as soon as it happened, even though she was deep in the hinterlands and wouldn't use a military line to do anything as sentimental as call her baby brother.  
  
“You've been watching me this whole time,” Alex points out.  
  
“You make me sound like a stalker.”  
  
Alex grins and shakes his head. He knows better than to make his sister admit out loud that she actually cares about him. But she's almost smiling too, and he knows that she does.  
  
Olivier thinks of the Briggs Bears first when she thinks about family now. But Alex... Alex has always been able to worm his way into her heart, since the day he was born.  
  
Alex tilts his chair back, looking up at the chandelier that stood sentinel, miraculously unbroken, during their fight. “Maybe neither one of us should keep the house,” he announces. “We could give it to someone. Mustang, maybe.”  
  
“Over my dead body!” Olivier snaps, and Alex smirks at her. “Catherine?” she finally proposes.  
  
“If she wants it.” Alex agrees.  
  
Olivier nods, warming to the idea. “We already know she's not joining the military. So maybe she can be the one to start a new story.”  
  
Alex snorts softly, trying to envision that. “For generations, the Armstrong family has... what? Taken up gardening and croquet?” He looks at the table instead of at Olivier, but she actually laughs at that, one of the very few times Alex has heard her openly laugh.

“Won pie-eating contests and... bred puppies?” she suggests, in between breaths.  
  
“Let Amestris protect itself, for once,” Alex says, more serious now. He picks up his head. Olivier's ice-blue stare sears into him.  
  
“Can we do that?” she asks quietly.  
  
Alex just raises an eyebrow. He knows his sister won't give up on duty until the day it inevitably kills her. She knows it, too. Serving their country has been their only choice for so long that it takes effort to remember that it is a choice. But Alex resisted when his ability to claim that choice was almost stripped away. And Olivier reaffirms her commitment to the Amestrian military every single time Miles or Buccaneer or any of the soldiers under her command look to her for leadership. They _could_ walk away from all this, who would stop them? But they won't.  
  
Olivier knows that what they're planning constitutes treason, that she's killed a general already, that this path she's chosen isn't one you can change your mind about. Sometimes the right thing isn't the same thing as what everyone tells you it is. Honor and Duty and Strength don't stop with following orders. Alex knew that years ago, in the faraway desert where their army lost its soul. He has always been smarter than her.  
  
Their family has been synonymous with the Amestrian Military from the very beginning. But they will be the generation that protects Amestris from itself.  
  
“It's nice to have you on my side again,” Alex says.  
  
Olivier snorts. “Idiot,” she accuses. “Get out of my house.”  
  
“With pleasure,” he replies smoothly, slipping out of his chair and walking toward the doorway.  
  
“Alex.” Olivier stops him before he can step out of the room. He turns around. “How bad is this gonna be?”  
  
He holds her gaze for a long time, then looks out into the hall for a moment, at the overly ostentatious marble staircase where they sat and told each other about their dreams and plans. He takes a deep breath and turns back to his sister. “Not bad enough to stop us,” he promises.  
  
Olivier nods. “Nothing ever is.”  
  
Alex gives her a salute before he leaves – they are still both in uniform, after all – and then he walks out through the massive front doors, leaving behind a burden he never wanted anyway.


End file.
